Empathy
by Pernshinigami
Summary: A mysterious gundam rescues Relena from S.B. Libra, they escape, but Dorothy gases the cockpit with Mentasynth gas. What will happen next!!
1. Default Chapter

Empathy  
By Nyassa Kaiba  
  
Prologue  
  
"Come on Princess! We've got to get out of here!" Natari dragged Relena down the hall of space battleship Libra. Smoke billowed behind them as Natari's detonator set off the smoke bombs. The detonator was Dr. N's latest invention. It would detonate only if it moved within range of the bomb in question. The idea was to create a fog bank that would confuse snipers trying to get a clear shot.   
  
Relena found herself dragged to a docking port empty of anything except Natari's enormous Blue Zero Gundam. "Into the passenger seat!" Natari ushered her.   
  
;"Which one?" Unlike the Wing Zero the Blue Zero had been built with a passenger seat for rescue or body guard missions. And the Zero System activated only when the button was pushed.   
  
"The one in the back." Natari said quickly. Relena vaulted into the back seat. "Oh no." Natari stated. Dorothy Catalonia had made her way through the smoke. "Not the scary lady with the huge eyebrows!"   
  
Dorothy grinned at having been able to find them. Dorothy pulled something out of her jacket pocket, pulled something out of it with her teeth, and threw it into the cockpit.   
  
"ABUNAI!!!!!" Natari cried. A blue and silver gas grenade landed in the cockpit just as the door was closing. "Come on Blue Zero you hunk of junk! Let's get out of here!!!" The Gundam slowly hummed to life, but so were the mobile dolls around them. "Shit, she's booted the Mobile Dolls." The Blue Zero beeped. "Full power, stand back Princess we're getting OUT of here!" The Blue Zero shot out to the edge of range, then Natari sent a low power missile into the hanger. Dorothy was by then long gone, but it left the mobile dolls within completely useless. Then, a single Virgo came out of the Hangar firing. Natari was streaking away, dodging the shots aimed at her. "Catch me! Like you even could, *thhhhhbbbbbbbb*!!" Bird mode. A wing was shot off. "Yah! Jeezz!! Dorothy doesn't take these things that lightly does she?" Another shot skimmed the paint and armor. "I WAS ONLY KIDDING ABOUT THE EYEBROWS YOU FUCKING BITCH!!!!!! Touchy isn't she?" Another one left a huge dent in the back of the mobile suit. "I just had the fucking thing DETAILED!!! That's it…" Natari turned the Gundam around and charged, beam saber out and aimed to kill. At the last second she dodged away, a feint, before charging in and sticking the beam saber down through the mobile doll's head. Natari pulled out, went back to bird mode, and left the place at the highest speed she could without hurting Relena. Once they were out of Libra's territory Natari turned her attention to the gas grenade. It had gone off while they were fighting. "There's nothing for it. It's gone off."   
  
"What was in it?" Relena asked, looking over Natari's shoulder.   
  
"Mentasynth gas. We've got…" Natari calculated quickly. "15 minutes until the stuff starts to take effect, and if somebody rescues us, then we're gonna end up giving it to whoever answers the door. There's no antidote either, although Dr. N is working on one."   
  
"What's Mentasynth gas?"   
  
"It was originally a gene manipulation, then Oz decided to use it for a weapon and White Fang stole it from them. It spreads like a virus, but diffuses into a range of only 15 feet. We're crammed into eight feet of space, so there's no escaping it. It's not contagious, but if you breath the gas, you're stuck."  
  
Relena's blood ran cold. "What does it do?"   
  
"It gives empathy, telepathy, and one helluva headache. I can put us into stasis though, so that it goes more slowly. You really don't want to be conscious when it kicks in. It's torture."   
  
"If it's that painful, I'd rather it go faster than slower." Relena said absently.   
  
"Okay then, I'm sending out a distress beacon. It's gonna home in on Wing Zero n' whatever ship it's docked in." Natari got to work programming the homer. "Probe away!" 


	2. Damsels in Distress

Ch. 1   
"Mr. Yuey to the bridge please." Heero managed to catch the worried undertone to Noin's voice. He sighed. He was trying to work on his logbook for the day. Duo had made the suggestion that they keep a log of what happens during the war. Part of bringing and maintaining peace was that the terrors and atrocities of war be recorded and remembered so that no one could ever forget why there had been peace in the first place.   
  
Heero made it to the bridge in 5 minutes. The other gundams were waiting for him. "We received this." Noin pressed a button on her console. A girl's face popped up. "My name is Natari Winner. I'm hoping if any of you run into her, that you could pass on the message to Dr. N. I've been waylaid by the mobile dolls. My gundam's taken some pretty heavy hits, but I managed to get Princess Relena out of Libra okay. I can't activate the Zero system while she's on board, so if I'm attacked I'm a sitting duck. If you can hear this, I'd really appreciate some help. I don't have much time to give you details. There's a …." Fzzzzzt. The transmission was cut off.   
"It's been damaged." Duo observed.   
"No shit sherlock." Wufei snapped.   
"Natari…" Quatre said worriedly. "She's one of us… I could have told her…And I didn't trust her…" Quatre looked about to cry. He straightened up, his voice now cold. "Come on you guys, we've got to find out where that beacon came from. We've got to rescue her."   
"Relative of yours Quatre?" Heero asked.   
"My cousin." Quatre said shyly. "When my…" Quatre cut himself off of that train of thought. "I mean, back home she was the only one who understood me. She was my closest friend." Quatre said worriedly. "I hope she's okay."   
"Oh great, the last thing we need is for Quatre to go insane again over losing someone. Come on Wu-man." Duo, in a state of hyperactivity, dragged Wufei from the room.   
Trowa, Quatre, and Heero followed. "Duo, have you been snorting pixie sticks again? Or did you have a whole box of Lucky Charms for breakfast?" Wufei asked irritably.   
"LUCKY CHARMS?! WHERE!!?? WHAT LUCKY CHARMS???!!!" Duo demanded.   
^-^; "I'll take that as a yes." Wufei answered his own question, as they were suiting up. The five gundams left in silence, they were on the move again. And soon the 5 would be 6. 


	3. Ch 2 Statistics, Logistics, and a dose o...

Ch.2  
Relena found herself floating in a chilly black void. Where am I? What happened? It's so cold… She shivered.   
Sorry about that Princess. I did what I could to make sure it wouldn't hurt us too much. Natari appeared beside her.   
Where are we?   
In a world you see with your heart in your dreams, where nothing is ever whatever it seems, where all you feel, and desire to be, takes form in a world of fantasy. Natari rhymed. I made up this place so that if I ever needed to escape, I could escape into my own head, and if necessary, take another with me. I call it dream world, mostly because I can use it to appear to people in dreams.  
It's strange. Relena commented, looking around at the darkness.  
Yeah, but it's loads of fun! We can do anything we want here!! Natari said, sounding almost hyper. I've even been able to work out what I'm going to write in my books here. I can observe the blocking and such without the characters seeing me.   
But how do we get out? Relena wondered.   
When somebody comes to get us we'll go back into our own heads only sleeping and wake up once the change is finished. I've set it that way. Natari explained.   
Meanwhile, Quatre and Trowa had latched tow cables onto the Blue Zero. "Man, this thing is heavy!" Sandrock was straining to pull the cable. "Our gundams can barely pull it!"   
"Well then we'll all have to help." Wufei rolled up his sleeves before attaching his own tow cable. Duo and Heero followed suit.   
"This Mobile Suit is ENORMOUS!" Duo exclaimed. "Who would build such a heavy thing?"   
"She's known only as Dr. N." Heero said calmly. "I've heard of her from Dr. J. She creates a lot of inventions but Oz likes to steal the things that she creates."   
"She must be a genius to figure out how to make something like that even MOVE let alone fly." Duo put all of DSH's thrust into hauling the thing, but they were making pretty good timing back to PeaceMillion.   
"Her I.Q. is in the 100th percentile." Heero said, emotionless. "Many scientists consider her to be the greatest mind this world has ever known."   
"Nice paint job on this thing." Duo commented. "But why did she have to make it so big?"   
"Because Dr. N wanted to put in room for a passenger, for guard or rescue missions." Heero told him.   
"You guys, the people inside aren't responding when I hail them." Wufei said, concerned. "White Fang might have gassed the cockpit before they took off."   
"I wouldn't put it past them." Quatre said worriedly. I hope she's okay. Quatre's mind went back to the day before he'd taken off for the drop to Earth.  
"Quatre, is something bothering you?" Natari asked.   
"No, nothing out of the ordinary." Quatre lied.   
"I'll have to be going away soon, so I'll see you when our paths cross again." Natari said sadly. "I'll miss you."   
"I'll miss you too." Quatre said sadly. Even as she was leaving on her flight to L6 colony block, he couldn't bring himself to tell her that he would be going into danger. And the two of us were in the same boat and I still couldn't tell her the truth. Quatre thought disgustedly. Some heir to the fortune I am.   
They came into the hanger and opened Natari's hatch. "RELENA!!" Heero cried, leaping Natari's chair like a spider from it's web. He carried her out, grimly. Quatre followed, retrieving Natari, tears streaming down his cheeks. Both girls were unconscious, sweating with the fever induced by the Mentasynth gas' changing their DNA.   
Duo climbed in after them, he began looking around for some evidence of what had hurt these girls. Trowa and Wufei peered in after him. "See anything Duo?" Trowa asked, worried.   
"I'm lookin' I'm lookin'" The American replied.   
"Um.. you guys, if White Fang gassed the cockpit, should we be looking inside for what did it to them?" Wufei asked, nervously.   
"THERE!!" Duo dove for the shell of the gas grenade. "I found it. Proffessor G said that Oz and white fang color code their chemical and germ weapons. All we have to do is match this up with the data banks he sent me and we can find out what got them."   
"And hopefully what's needed to treat it." Wufei said grimly, sweatdropping. "I hope it CAN be treated, because after going into the danger zone without gas masks, we'll be under it next!" The three boys carried the gas grenade to Peace Million's computer laboratory. Duo held it under the optical scanner.   
"Come on Deathscythe, we need your computing power!" Duo muttered as he pressed the scan button. Deathscythe's main computers found the color coding. "THERE!! Mentasynth gas, originally created by Dr. N as a Gene therapy treatment to give humankind empathy and telepathy. Effects last 24 hours. Range is 15 feet, diffuses in 6 hours in the open air or on a ship. Dangerous, but not overly so. It was kept by Oz, The Trieze Faction, and White Fang. However, the Trieze faction uses it selectly and only on it's own men in order to raise their empathy ratings. It's all here, all of it."   
Wufei shivered. "Gene enhancements, Trieze liked to use them, but with great caution. Sometimes a person isn't compatible in personality with the enhancements, and they suffer psychological damage. Usually they only use it on their healers or medics, because the enhancements help them find out what's wrong with their patients, especially if their patient is out cold and can't speak."   
Quatre didn't say anything. He remembered his own run in with the stuff. It had been terrible, but most of the time he'd been sleeping. Oz had been doing human testing of the gas and he'd been caught to use as a test subject. They'd been humane enough to keep him sedated at least. And then they'd let him go. "I've heard of that stuff. Dr. H sent me to spy on Oz's human trials of them."   
"Can you remember anything about it?" Duo asked, hopeful. "Like how it's treated?"   
"There was no need for a treatment, the people who got it didn't want to change back. They viewed it more like a gift than a curse." Quatre replied, shyly. Duo didn't understand why Quatre was acting so shy about it, but Quatre didn't want to talk more about it. (*sigh* poor Duo, hot as Hell but with the I.Q. of cheez. It's o.k. Duo, we love you anyway.)   
"Well you'll be needing it Duo." Wufei said dryly. "You have about as much empathy as a rock."   
"HEY! I'M TRYING TO HELP HERE!!" Duo shouted at him. "If you don't want my help with it then fine, solve it on your own, but touch Deathscythe's computer databank, even to play solitare, and I'll make you wish that you'd never been born!!"   
"Down doggy." Wufei rolled his eyes. "My Altron has twice the processing speed and memory in it's computers and a better paint job. Black isn't really in style for Mobile suits anymore, not since the Virgo pushed the Taurus off the Market."   
Duo was about to come back with a quick retort. He stifled his protest and then set about doing body mass calculations to see how long it would take. "According to Deathscythe, Wufei would be first to fall ill from the stuff. Then Heero and myself at about the same time, then Trowa, then finally Quatre." Duo set the timer on his watch. "About 15 minutes. Wufei, I suggest you haul ass back to your rooms or to sickbay. Your own rooms might be more comfortable."   
"You're just saying that." Wufei pouted. "I think the Deathscythe did that because I insulted it's paint job."   
"You give my mobile suit entirely too much credit." Duo said with a wicked grin.   
"I wouldn't grin if I were you. You'll be under it too." Wufei gulped.   
"We'd better get to our quarters." Quatre sighed. "This is going to be a long night."   
  
***  
Fucking idiots downtown shut down the stupid computer 3 TIMES!! So if the School Board of the New Haven Public Schools ever reads this, I hope they fuck the hell out of my business. I am so angry that I could explode. I was trying to send my reply to a fic that my girlfriend (I'm bi, so yes, I DO have a girl friend,) a crossover RP between Yugioh and her original series "The Elementals." I'm fed up with the people downtown, they have no right to shut down a person's computer when they're trying to get a story up. I HATE COMPUTERS!! I HATE SCHOOL BOARDS AND I HATE ADULTS!! I hope whoever is in charge of the school board is tortured almost to the point of death and then manages to survive and makes an excruciatingly slow and diffacult recovery, have a nice fucking life. 


End file.
